The girl with the sunflower dress
by spc2106
Summary: The smallest child can cause the greatest of tragedies. Some are stopped, others are not.


It was a sunny day in the land of fire. On the offside of Konoha lay a small city.  
>The city was a busy trade hub with one of the largest markets in the land. Naruto and team 7 was enjoying the downtime after escorting a trader to the city.<p>

Naruto was soaking in the jubilant feeling of the marked. Smiles were abundant and merchant peddled their wares to any and all who would listen.

A small sob caught his attention. There in the crowd was a small girl. Her blond hair seemed lifeless and straw like. She was wearing a sunflower dress, but it was hidden under a brown hoodie. A small tuft of yellow poked out under it.

Never being one to leave a child alone crying, he made his way over to the young girl.

"Hey there" he yelled out, his mouth tugging into an uncomfortably large grin.

She seemed to stop for a moment as she looked around. Spotting him her eyes grew wide. At his waving she tentatively raised her own.

"I'm Naruto. who're you?" He kept his smile as large as he could as he took in her in closer detail.

Her arms and legs were thin and the blue eyes were sunken.

sniffing she looked at him. "Yuki." The voice was thin and wrecked with tears.

"Well Yuki, this is no place to stand around in. I want some ramen." His smiled seemed to widen even more. "And you have to try it. It's the food of the kami after all." He had leaned down towards her as he started talking about ramen.

Yuki shrinked in on herself. "NO." her voice shrill. "I... I can't." Lower now.

Narutos eyebrows scrunched. "Why not." He turned wide eyes at her. "You don't like ramen?"

She seemed to still for a moment before she relented at his stare. "They said I had to stay here."

Going down on his knees Naruto looked the girl into her eyes. "Who?" His usually loud voice was quiet now.

Yuki fiddled with her dress hem. "The scary guys with the black cloaks."

"Why would you listen to them?" Naruto rested his right hand on her shoulder. She flinched but he didn't relent.

"Because, they said they would hurt my brother." With the arm on her shoulder she seemed to struggle with herself for a few moments before leaning into the half embrace.

Shuffling Naruto maneuvered her into resting her into his shoulder. "I see." He cast a glance around the crowd. "Why did they want you to stay here?"

She didn't answer, she just stood there for a time. "I don't want to do this." Her voice broke as she spoke and buried herself firmly into his shoulder.

Embracing her properly, he could feel her slight frame and her dry hair.

He had never been good at the academy, but he remembered days of hunger and dehydration. At one point he remembered being as slight as the child in his arms.

"How old are you?" His voice was uncharacteristically soft.

Sniffing into his shoulder, she repositioned herself and looked up into his eyes. "Seven."

"I'm thirteen. And a couple of months ago I became a genin."

"What's that?" Yuki looked up her eyes brimming with unshed tears.

Naruto grinned widely again. "That's the first rank of shinobi."

Her head turned downwards. "Oh..."

Naruto let his grin drop and replaced it with a smaller smile. "Yeah, and soon I'll become hokage." When she didn't say anything he elaborated. "That's the ninja leader. The strongest one alive."

They sat there in silence a while longer before Yuki's hands went up to her zipper. With shaky hands she zipped it all the way down, so that the hoodie hanged loosely on her shoulder.

Underneath her sunflower dress was visible. The dress was, however, covered from just underneath her neck to just above her dress hem in explosive tags.

"Oh." was the only thing Naruto could say. They weren't the same quality as the ones he had in his pouch, these had to be a civilian model.

"They placed them on my dress." her hands gestured at the tags. "I don't know what they are."

His smiled dropped slightly but quickly put it back on a bit more forcefully as she turned around towards him. "That's okay. It's nothing dangerous."

Naruto's hand went through her head. "You're lying, aren't you?" Her gaze turned to the dirt road. "They said it'll make all the people around me go away." She embraced Naruto. "That's not good right?"

He shook his head. "Don't worry about it." He shuffled her closer to his body.

Spotting gravity defying grey hair he made subtle motions with his hands without disturbing the girl in his hand.

While his sensei hadn't taught the genin all that much in the time they had been under him, he was a true believer of teamwork. In order for a team to work properly they would need to talk together and as such one of the first thing they learned was a crude but efficient sign language. With it basic tactics could be implemented or information passed on in a coded language no one other than the team could understand.

As he grabbed Kakashi's attention he made a closed fist at him with his right hand. Then he tapped it slowly with his other hand and as they meet his, right fist was quickly opened. His sensei's eyes widened and disappeared out of sight.

Focusing back on the girl in his arms, he nudged her softly. "Who did this to you?"

Her voice was tired as she answered. "I don't... They had black cloaks." The excitement must have gotten to her.

"What else do you remember?" Deep in his mind a lecture from Iruka resurfaced. Information was imperative if they were to bring these men to justice.

"The cloaks had a red sun on them." He could feel her wet eyes through his jumpsuit. "I... like your jumpsuit."

He smiled a single true smile. "It's awesome right?"

He thought he could spot a small smile under her hair. "I like the color."

By now the square around them had all but emptied. He spotted team seven locking down the entrances but avoided their eyes.

A sizzling sound filled his ears. "What's that?" Yuki asked.

His heart thrummed in his chest as the familiar sound continued. "It's nothing."

Her crying became stronger. "I'm scared."

Naruto tightened his grip. "Don't be. You'll be just fine."

She was shaking violently now. "I don't want to kill you."

He shushed her. "You're not. Don't worry. Everything will be fine."

She stilled and snuck her hands around his chest as he hugged her tightly. "Thank you."

The sizzling suddenly stopped. Civilian models in comparison with their ninja counterparts were dreadfully slow. They sizzled for far longer and much louder, but most importantly from the sizzling stopped to the explosion, was a one second delay.

He knew this only because once in his pranking days had gotten his hands on civilian tags and had misjudged their timing and ended in the hospital.

For him, as he embraced the small girl, that second was the longest he had ever experienced.

"Naruto!" Just as Kakashi's shout reached him the explosion rocketed through the marked.

He didn't wait for the fireball to go away, instead he jumped into the inferno. The flames licked at his mask but he paid it no mind. As he came to the epicenter he cast his eyes back and forth for any sign of the blond haired boy under his command.

Several tags around ones torso will direct the force outwards and often leaves the limbs and head intact as they are torn of before the hot flames could disintegrate them.  
>Finally the flames rescinded and he could get a clear look at the carnage. Blood was soaked into the ground and a few body parts laid strewn around. A piece of scalp with blond hair caught his eyes and his breath caught in his throat. The sounds of civilians screaming and running around in the background dulled and he couldn't pry his eyes of the scalp.<p>

No one had died under his command for years. Not since Obito.

"sensei?" The voice of the only female in team seven brought him out of his thoughts.

Wrestling his feeling back under control he felt the coldness of his ANBU persona take over. The pain dulled and his eyes became calculated.

There was something wrong. That lid wasn't there before the blast. Hope slowly filled his chest and he turned rapidly toward a dead end street.

The sound of retching reached his ears and he rushed towards it. There amidst the garbage sat Naruto on his knees as he emptied his stomach.

His hands were scorched and his eyes was far away, but he was alive.


End file.
